


Longings

by bellatrix_black_Lestrange (bellatrix_black_lestrange)



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Edith Cushing/Lucille Sharpe - Freeform, F/F, Incest, mention of Lucille Sharpe/Thomas Sharpe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 07:10:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5082517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatrix_black_lestrange/pseuds/bellatrix_black_Lestrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucille Sharpe takes care of her brother's bride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Longings

Edith Sharpe woke earlier that morning, cold and unaccompanied. For the past hour, she had been curled up under the blankets listening to the drafty old house creak and wail. The muse to continue working on her novel had not yet visited her, and she felt she hadn’t much better to do than lay there. 

She heard footsteps down the hallway, and assuming it was Thomas, Edith sat up to greet her husband. The door opened. It was not Thomas. It was her sister-in-law. Edith hadn’t picked up on the jingling of the keys she always carried at her hip. That noise always followed her. Whenever there was a moment alone with her husband, she would hear jingling shortly after. Then Thomas would pull away from her, for modesty’s sake around his sister.

There Lucille stood, with such dignity and coldness. She was holding her tea tray with its setup of gold, red, and black enameled china.

“Good morning, Edith. I think it’s time you got dressed and started your day.” It was more a command then a suggestion. “Thomas sent me. He was concerned you were feeling unwell.” The corners of Lucille’s mouth pulled into a tight-lipped smile.

A stream of cold air moved through the doorway. The cold seems to follow my sister-in-law, Edith thought. Lucille moved further into the room and set the tea tray down on the bed. Edith diverted her gaze away from Lucille’s unblinking stare.

“You drink while I brush your hair.” Lucille ordered gently. Edith brought the cup to her lips, to pacify her.

Lucille had gone to the dressing table and come back with the hairbrush, an intricately adorned silver paddle-brush with boar’s bristles. She took the length of Edith’s hair in her hands and ran her long, strong piano player’s fingers through it. Edith stiffened.

“Such lovely hair. I bet my brother is very fond of it. Yours is sunshine while his looks like a moonless night.” Lucille complimented. Edith’s cheeks flushed scarlet.

“Oh, how she blushes.” Lucille teased. “You are such a lovely little thing. My brother did so well…” This time, she thought silently. She imagined what it would be like to kiss those thin, bloodless lips and suck the rest of the life out of them. Maybe some time before Edith’s death, she would take her to bed with her brother and let her be their plaything.

She took a tendril of Edith’s hair and stroked it against her own cheek. Lucille then very gently ran the brush through it. She worked on handful-sized sections of hair, and little by little Edith relaxed into her touch. Lucille lifted Edith’s entire mass of hair, and placed a hand at the nape of her neck. Cold. 

With her hand rested there, Lucille contemplated what it would feel like to give a nice, sharp jerk and split her neck in two. Or she could join one hand with another, and squeeze down until there was no more air or life in Edith’s body. But instead, she began working at the tangled underside of the hair.

The back was knotted, and it hurt Edith to have it brushed out. She instinctively pulled away, but Lucille kept a firm grip on her hair.

“Your mother should’ve told you, if you pull it hurts even more.” Lucille snipped.

That last comment hurt more than the yanking at her scalp. Edith had no mother, and was freshly without a father. She was a new orphan. The Sharpe siblings had never known parental love, and could not empathize with what she’s just been through.

When she finished brushing every tangle out of Edith’s hair, Lucille wrapped a hand around Edith’s wrist and pulled her out of bed. Her grip was firm but unforceful. “You should dress now. I will bring you a clean chemise, that one needs washing.”

Edith hesitantly pulled her bedclothes off, exposing herself to the room and to Lucille. She felt Lucille’s eyes dart up and down the length of her body. Her sister-in-law’s lips parted every so slightly, as if she was about to say something, but she remained silent.

Lucille studied Edith’s figure out of the corner of her eye, one small glance at a time. She came to the conclusion that her brother’s bride was nothing special. She’d already begun getting thinner and sicklier, and would soon fade away just as the others had. Someone else would scarcely be able to tell, but Lucille could already notice the circles forming under Edith’s eyes as she began to waste away. Lucille swore that every time she drained the life of one of Thomas’s wives, she became more beautiful herself. Thomas would always make remarks about how there were roses in her cheeks and more sparkle in her eyes right around the time his wives were about to expire.

The new chemise was Lucille’s, an embroidered muslin thing from when she was younger, before she went away to Switzerland. She never wore it anymore, but kept it pressed and in a trunk with a sachet of lavender for her brother’s brides. 

“Lift your arms.” 

Edith complied. Lucille pulled it over Edith’s head, and then collected her golden hair and draped it over one shoulder. She slid the corset onto her torso and began to jerk at the laces to tighten them. Lucille was stronger than she looked, and made very quick work of dressing her sister-in-law.

Then she sat Edith at the vanity table and began to style her hair. Edith looked at her caretaker’s reflection in the mirror, and remarked to herself that Lucille looked like a fox, with her green, scrutinizing eyes and the way she worked with her nose poked nearly all the way into her hair. At times she felt Lucille’s breath on the back of her neck, when she swept her hair up to pin it.

Lucille was finished. “Now if you’ll step out for a bit, I am going to change the linens and tidy up in here. Breakfast is on the table, and when you see my brother, tell him I bid him good morning.” She smiled tightly.

Edith left, and heard the click of a key turning in the lock as soon as she closed the door. Lucille was always locking the doors.

Now that she was alone, Lucille could thrust open the doors of Edith’s armoire and explore its contents. She flicked through the dresses, past the gaudy yellow gold with leg-of-mutton sleeves she thought was hideous, past the cream traveling dress and capelet, looking for one specific dress that she hadn’t seen before. Lucille was looking for the white silk wedding dress. Finally, she found it in a keepsake box at the back. Edith had tucked it away, never intending it to be worn again.

She unearthed the long, thin box from the armoire. Lucille removed the dress carefully, to not disturb the tissue that surrounded it. Edith’s wedding dress was considered the height of fashion. Lucille would never own a wedding dress herself, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t wear one

Lucille began to undo the bodice of her green velvet house dress, and when it was free, she laid it on the dressing table. She removed her skirt, and set it down with care as well. Her underskirts were the wrong volume, and her corset was the kind to flatten the bust and take the waist in at a straight angle, rather than the softer-looking, cone-shaped silhouette that was coming into fashion. Still, she stepped into Edith’s wedding gown, and fastened the back all on her own. In the mirror, she gazed at her reflection and imagined what she would look like at her wedding to Thomas. It would never happen, and he would be sent to prison for bigamy, or murdered for their perversions before any wedding, but still Lucille liked to dream.

She thought on Edith’s wedding, and was glad she wasn’t made to attend. Lucille had needed to show up to a few of Thomas’s other ones and was tired of it. The only part that made them worth all the forced well wishing, and pretending she enjoyed socializing with the bride’s family was the dance her brother would always give her during the party. She was never a great dancer; Her feet could move as gracefully as her hands could. But Thomas’s lead would make her look beautifully skilled.

Her fingers instinctively went to where she wore the ring, but remembered it wasn’t there. Staring into the mirror, Lucille held her head high. In a soft, floaty white dress, with her long-neck at full extension, she looked like a mute swan. It was true that swans mated for life, and would typically choose a mate from the flock they grew up in. Thomas. They don’t migrate, and can stay in one place throughout winter. Lucille fancied herself and her brother as a pair of swans. In truth, they were more like the foxes or minxes that preyed on the just-hatched cygnets, but for the sake of her fantasy she ignored it.

Lost in her fantasy, Lucille began to feel aroused. They would never have a wedding night, but the first night at Allerdale Hall, in the master bedroom after her return from Switzerland was the closest thing she would ever get. They were unchaperoned for the first time in a long time, and both virgins. Neither sibling had to go out and say it. In their letters, they managed to promise themselves to each other, without explicitly saying it. Both Thomas and Lucille knew that their correspondence could be pried into without warning, and at any time by the officials at the Swiss asylum. If they found out about the Sharpes shared longings, Lucille might never have gotten to go home.

Lucille sunk into Edith’s bed. She curled her lip in disgust at the smell of her perfume. Edith always wore gardenia, a scent Lucille hated. She slid her hand up Edith’s skirts and played with herself, thinking of Thomas until she came to a silent climax.


End file.
